Chinese Tea: 3 Basic Brewing Rules

It is no secret that tea is of great importance in China and that it is far more than a simple beverage.
Tea is a whole culture, philosophy, an attitude towards life. Each person will perform a different tea ceremony with different tools and teapots depending on his/her previous experience and relation with tea.
Thus there is no such thing in China as “tea ceremony is done by completing these following steps”.

Even if you have the best tea leaves, a poor quality water can ruin your whole tea experience. Make sure you use mineral water in order to make a good tea!

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2. Temperature matters

You will have to take into consideration the temperature in two cases. First, the temperature of the water at which you are brewing your tea. While green tea needs low water temperatures (boiling water will burn green tea leaves so watch out!), other more fermented teas such as Puer or Tieguanyin need the water to be at 100°C.

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And second, the temperature of your tea pot. If the pot where you are going to put hot water is cold, it will lower the temperature of your water, thus alter the full flavor of your tea. Pour a little bit of boiling water in the glass, cup or teapot and heat the whole receptacle before putting your tea leaves in the teapot or cup.

When brewing teas that need high temperatures, you may also pour boiling water on the teapot once the tea is inside in order to increase, even more, the temperature.

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3. Let the tea to adapt to each new change.

Tea needs time to adapt to new conditions, just as a person would need a bit of time to adapt to new circumstances.

When preparing green tea, fill the pot with water in two steps: first fill only a third of the glass and after a couple of seconds, fill the recipient completely.

In this way you will get the full flavor and smells of the green tea.

On the other hand, if you are preparing Pu’erh tea, for example, you will need to pour some boiling water and then throw that water away.

This step is known as the “awakening of the tea” and it is used with those teas that have been stored for a long time (in the case of Pu’erh tea, the older the tea is, the better).